


Rough Terrain

by Majorminor2242, Rabbit (Majorminor2242)



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, The Martian - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dimension Travel, Mars, Multiverse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:40:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26803771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Majorminor2242/pseuds/Majorminor2242, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Majorminor2242/pseuds/Rabbit
Summary: No-one could have predicted the storm that came.It's for that reason alone that Mark doesn't blame any of his crew-mates for abandoning him....After all, his bio-monitor had flatlined when his suit was pierced by a stray radio antenna. Seeing their companion's vitals drop to '0' must have hit them as hard as being abandoned on a desolate, unforgiving planet alone. *Almost.But then, just as he's about through on hope and doubts that rescue could reach him... Three alien astronauts find themselves knocking at his airlock door, stranded on a planet they don't recognise as one within their solar system.
Relationships: Mark Wattney & Pocket Monsters | Pokémon
Kudos: 9





	1. A Brief Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> This story assumes a basic working knowledge of Pokémon and the world therein. Most of the series is canonical to this story, with a few specific exceptions (most notably that humans don't exist in their own world --that includes pokémon trainers).
> 
> This story is quite obviously based off of the main premise in The Martian, owned by Andy Weir, and I hold no claims of ownership over anything but this very story.
> 
> This has been written in a way that shouldn't necessitate you having read/watched The Martian, however I would highly recommend you do either -or both- since not only are both the book and movie incredible, but it does help to give a deeper understanding of more fundamental elements in this story.
> 
> Hearing feedback on either advice or constructive criticism would be fantastic, but with that, let's get on with the story... :)

_The Mana Drive was one of the most advanced leaps made in Pokémon technology. Featuring speed rivalling light itself and powered by a core with a replenishing power-source, it could only be seen as thaumaturgy by those who don't understand it. At its core was a condensed mana-crystal capable of holding up to one megaton of energy -in MP (mana points). Think of MP as a conversion currency to Joules (J)._

_One megaton of energy is 4.18 x 10 15 joules (418, about the same as one million tons of TNT)._

_This mana crystal contains that amount of energy within it, held within a small cored at the centre of a spaceship that has barely flown its first few missions._

_In its most simplistic form, it is a teleportation spell. Put more complicated, it is a method or warping space around you._

_To understand; imagine you draw a small dot on the left side of a sheet of paper. That dot represents you/your ship, and the paper represents a theoretical 2-dimensional plane of space. By folding the paper in various ways, you can make the dot reach the right side without it ever technically 'moving' by itself. By doing this, you also alter the 2-dimensional plane into a 3-dimensional plane._

_Understand?_

_Well, if you do, that's great, but if you don't, just stick with the 'it's a teleportation spell'._

_Its only limiting factors are the energy generation/storage (how much mana it can produce in a steady stream) and the frequency at which it could fire. The first model of the Mana Drive was only capable of moving a total of ten metres (across a small room) before exploding. The third -and current generation- Mana Drive is capable of moving about three feet ~48,000 times per second for prolonged amounts of time._

_If that isn't peak progress made within a single decade, I don't know what is._

_Using conventional methods of the past -chemical rockets- a trip to the orbiting moon would take roughly four days. Using the Mana Drive, an unmanned probe took mere hours, and a year later with the introduction of a microprocessor far more capable than its predecessor, it took half an hour for a two-manned vessel to reach there and back._

_That's why after that, there was no turning back to the early designs of chemical rockets. They were hardly developed any further with the introduction of Mana propulsion. There was no need for a rocket that flew a fraction of the speed and required boundless fuel expenses. There's a common saying in space; 'fire is your enemy', which is another reason for the quick phase-out of the chemical rockets._

_For the third mission, the Universal Planet Discovery corporation (UPD) funded the construction of a new ship. One with a larger hull, more streamlined shape, extra compartments and rooms. For this mission, their objective was to reach Ares, the closest planet to their own._

_Ares was just a little smaller in size, and its surface was a dusty red. Storms were common on its surface, and its core had frozen long ago leaving its magnetic field to diminish almost entirely -which in turn resulted in its loss of an atmosphere. Without an atmosphere to reflect the sun's rays, its surface was searing at day but chilling at night._

_Overall, it was quite the inhospitable planet, however this was still the optimal test for the refitted ship, and so this is where they set off to reach. Unlike every other mission, however, this time they decided to push beyond a simple orbit._

_They wanted to land._

_Of course, this in turn took plenty of planning for. They had to do several tests using fabricated simulations of both Ares' gravity and atmosphere. The astronauts needed to learn how to safely land, leave and board the ship (as taking a single step on the planet's surface was the primary goal), as well as stay alert to any possible storms that may abruptly turn up._

_All of this was done using simulations -to the best accuracy they could achieve using maths and physics alone, and soon enough, it was time for the third operation to launch._

_They called this 'Operation Bigfoot' -both because taking a step on Ares was a colossal achievement, and because this mission was seen as a huge step forward in the future of space exploration/travel._

_The crew of the flight consisted of only three Pokémon. A Lucario who specialised in the maintenance of the Mana Drive's core, source and battery reserves as well the navigation of the ship, who was as steely-eyed as a drill sergeant and was in any emergency situation tasked as 'captain' of the ship. A Zeraora who had an affinity for electricity and mechanical engineering, who had too much energy to contain and revelled in the title of practical joker of the crew. He naturally knew how to hold morale high and provide much needed comic relief during the most stressful times, but also knew where to draw the line and get serious. Finally, they were both joined by a Zoroark who was kind-hearted and liked a good laugh, but was the only one of the three who had no actual experience in space. They knew their way around herbs, medicine, geology and geothermal activity, and were tasked with taking various samples, data readings and recordings on Ares to study and bring back home with them._

_Technically speaking, none of them were 'in command' for the most part, however if things became serious or they couldn't all agree on a decision, the Lucario was the one who held authority in tie-breakers and also was the one tasked with taking charge if truly necessary. Other than that, they remained equal and professional, as each of them were taught of the importance of others' perspectives, as they may find different solutions to a problem you won't._

_The launch utilised conventional rockets (as the Mana Drive couldn't function without escaping orbit first, and it went flawlessly. The course was set at the optimal time of year, and for a solid forty-eight hours, the flight went without a hitch._ _By estimation, Ares was about eight months away travelling by chemical rockets, however with the MD (Mana Drive) it would take mere days, travelling three metres at a time, forty-thousand times per second._

_They were halfway on their course and each of them took shifts in eating, sleeping and monitoring the ship, when eventually, something_ did _go wrong._

_The flight ought to have been perfectly safe. The Mana Drive didn't actually affect the momentum of the ship, as by technicality, the ship was_ motionless. _It only moved at high speed between teleports, which limited any potential damage the ship could sustain from space dust and debris. Not only that, but the ship had been fitted with safeguard functions that told it to avoid anything obstructing its direct path by shifting diagonally by any degree. To enable this, each individual warp had to set its next 'destination' once at a time so as to not conflict pre-paths with relocations, thus avoiding either collisions (bad) or two objects sharing the same point in spacetime (worse). The drive would automatically displace the ship just far enough in whatever direction to avoid an encounter, or if it found no possible solution, would stop the ship entirely (leaving it still without movement)._

_Unfortunately, there were_ ~~just one~~ _two-_ _**three** _ _flaws... One which should have been spotted in the theoretics of the Drive by its designers, one which nobody could have perceived happening -until it did, and one which nobody could have done anything about in any case._

_Flaw #1: There was no clear contingency to stop the drive from warping more than just three-dimensionally in emergency displacement._

_Flaw #2: _There was no backup line of contact between ship and HQ if communications cut.__

_Flaw #3: _There was nothing they could do if the Mana Drive was affected by a far lower gradient of mana pressure in its surroundings.__

_A microscopic grain of sand floated into the ship's flight path._

_The Mana Drive automatically displaced the ship to avoid it._

_And all hell broke loose._


	2. Sol 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Mon' is the Pokémon equivalent to 'man' from human. If I call a Pokémon a 'mon', it basically means 'man'.

The time to take command had come far sooner than Riu would have liked. The Lucario gave the orders for the other two to suit up alongside him as the ship bucked like a horse and the vast, inky, abyssal blackness of space that was previously ahead of them turned into an enormous red planet -which they assumed was Ares, despite knowing that the course's reading was still far from the planet not long ago.

"How did we get so close so fast?!" Crystal murmured, swallowing but doing her best to remain rational and calm.

Of course she was asking questions, it was her first actual time up in space after all (unlike the many simulations she'd trained through alongside them). This was very different to a simulation though, the pressure hit with truth, as psychologically, you knew that this time, it wasn't a drill.

"Now's not the time to ask that. We need to re-stablise in this orbit and make sure we don't collide head-on with Ares. Zeph, what does the alignment say?"

The Zeraora inhaled sharply as his eyes widened among the various readings and gauges displayed, lights blinking and flashing like a disco floor but one common occurrence between them all...

"Zeph! _Focus!_ What does it say?!" Riu withheld from snarling. They needed to focus _now,_ otherwise all that training was for nothing. They were going to die.

"It- i-it's all..." the mon stuttered, before shaking his head and steeling his voice. _"There's **nothing**. We aren't getting any mana supplied to the drive, and we also aren't ANYWHERE on the navigation board..."_

"What do you mean?! How can we be nowhere? Can you reroute emergency power to restart the core?"

"No, all the electrical and systems are intact, but the mana batteries are at 6% total capacity. Not just that, but it looks like the core has disconnected entirely from the drive...

We aren't able to get any of the systems functioning without that connection... The lights and basic deck consoles are running on a separate circuit on the back-up electrical batteries we have, but even those are already drained considerably down to 20%."

 _'Damnit!'_ Riu cursed, instantly turning to make his way towards the airlock, aiming to get to the core reactor room. "I'm going back there to fix it- Crystal, check the ship; are we losing air??"

The Zoroark stuttered, flicking through various screens rapidly. "Most of it is stable and secure, holding at one atmosphere, however the ship's hull has been compromised in storage bottom floor. We aren't going at fast enough for it to start ripping apart more, but we will be soon, and when that happens we can't risk altering pressure between other airlocks and rooms so you have to be quick."

"How long until it starts tearing?"

"About twelve minutes give or take..."

"Alright, I'll be back in eleven minutes or less. Zeph, you take charge of rerouting whatever electricity you can into the airlocks on my path, Crystal, start realigning the thrusters to slow our descent. Adjust aiming to clear the planet and orbit around, but if we aren't able to get enough mana for that, be prepared to align with the surface for descent." He punched the button to pressurise the airlock, before disappearing behind the thick door and further into the ship.

The two got to work, but for every door or hatch Zeph opened for Riu, the backup power dropped lower and lower until it was past 'bad' and into 'terrifying' territory. As he did this, Crystal got to work on the math involved in realigning the thrusters, taking into account their current and predicted velocity against Ares' gravitational strength, and what amount of energy would be needed to clear the upcoming planet.

All three Pokémon knew that if they got this wrong, they'd indisputably die, and so with a serious time-crunch, they spared no more time for unnecessary talk or deliberation.

Once the Lucario finally reached the core room, he almost choked on the limited air within his suit (despite having air in the rooms, they wore the suits just incase something happened). His eyes roamed the batteries with horror, and he found that out of _eight mana batteries_ -five sourcing the drive and three in reserve- only two batteries had remained intact. One read 4%, whilst the other only read 2%. The rest had not only shattered, but ground into dust. The compartments surrounding them had also ruptured and distorted.

"Arceus christ, _I think I found the source of the bang we all felt earlier."_ he relayed to the others before setting in motion.

Pulling himself forward, he immediately got to work in connecting the two spare batteries to the core's main line, and knowing he still had roughly six minutes left before needing to return (astronauts were taught to time themselves precariously) he got to work in expending as much aura as he could to convert into mana. Thankfully, the electronics and power feeds were all still intact. By the time he was done, he felt close to collapsing from fatigue from how much he strained to exert so quickly, however he saw that the batteries had only doubled in total power.

Getting back to the deck -aided by Zeph who was monitoring his location with the bio-signal built into each suit, Riu snarled to himself.

"I was only able to double it to 12% total. Something seems to be affecting my aura as just that much put large strain on me... Are we realigned?" he looked to the Zoroark.

"Yes, I'm working off of the best estimates I can for what we know, but it's as good as it will get."

"Okay, how much power do we have no Zeph?"

"Only 16% backup electricity and now 12% mana capacity. I can't get the core to jumpstart at all without at least four batteries running -or three with minimal exertion, so we can't generate any more.

"Damnit, that's not enough to slow our descent... What would converting get us?"

"It'd boost mana from 12% to about... 16% I'd say, but then we'd lose all control over the deck and main systems. That includes landing gear, gyroscopic thrusters _and_ level readings. We'd be relying solely upon manual input for the thrusters without assistance and we'd be guessing at any system levels."

"... Hold of on doing that. I want gauges visible until absolutely needed.

Riu sat down at the main communications board. "Mossdeep, this is Moxie, over."

Silence echoed throughout the room as each held their breaths.

"HQ, this is Moxie, do you read me?"

Concern did more than just 'rise'.

"Base, _do you copy?!"_ both the Zeraora and Zoroark immediately rushed to grip the Lucario's shoulders, as his eyes were flared and a guttural gnarl was building in his throat.

"Easy- easy. Line's cut, raising your voice won't help. Let's just focus."

The Lucario eased back into the chair, taking a deep breath before standing. "How long until we catch?"

"We're already entering Ares' orbit. In a few minutes, there'll be no way to counter the descent velocity.

"Transfer all electricity into mana reserves. How long will 16% get us on the thrusters?"

"On main thrusters; only three seconds with a single full battery and without mana regeneration from the core's cycle. We have one sixth of that."

"What about on the secondary boosters?"

"They won't be enough to slow our descent at all-"

 _"How long?"_ he pressed.

"... Ten, maybe twelve seconds. We might be able to prolong that by a fraction if we use short, incremental bursts, but..."

"Um, guys... _I think we have a problem..."_ Crystal breathed as the other two turned to her in worry.

"What's-"

"This i-isn't Ares..." she pointed outside the large gallery window of the main deck. "None of the landmarks are in the right locations, and I'm pretty sure I'm seeing around eleven satellites when there should only be the one probe... In fact, I don't even think I recognise any of the stars or constellations at all."

"Hold on-" both Riu and Zeph leant over the desk, craving their necks upwards to see the planet far closer than they thought. "Ah shit on a stick, that _definitely_ isn't Ares..."

"Okay, Zeph, I want you on controls. Route all power _except_ the monitor display for mana-battery levels into the converter. We're going to try and shallow out our approach. If we're lucky, we'll skip into orbit. If we're not so lucky, we'll be making an impromptu landing... Tell me if the batteries drop below 8%, that's our safety margin. Crystal, strap in anything that's loose and then get seated, this is going to be a very bumpy ride..."

* * *

Against all odds, Riu had somehow managed to transfer vertical acceleration into horizontal speed by using a culmination of thumbing the thrusters furtively and cussing at the universe for its bullshit. But in the end, they had been unable to come close to skipping orbit, and now they were down to the last five percent. Notably, the direction of approach of the planet's surface was a worrying sight.

"U-uh... it looks like we have another problem..."

"What is it, Crystal?"

"We're heading straight into the path of a sandstorm, and judging from the speed of the winds, it looks like a bad one."

Already knowing where she was heading with this, Riu groaned. "So much for a 'smooth' skid of a landing, we'll be flung about like a Pokédoll if we hit that thing."

"There's hardly enough power to adjust course at all by this point. It looks like we don't have a choice..." Zeph stated, eyes unblinking from the lone lit-up monitor as though making sure that the number didn't plummet the moment he blinked.

"Welp, strap in, this bumpy ride just became an off-rails rollercoaster."

Little did any of them know, that at the same time, a small base known as the 'H.A.B.' (Prefabricated Surface Habitat -yes, that spells PSH, not HAB but let's not comment on that) was being tested tried and true against one of the harshest imaginable storms Mars could offer. The six temporary residents of this HAB (and who were apart of a space program mission known as 'ARES III') had already set out to reach the MAV (Mars Ascent Vehicle) and abort their mission, launching back to orbit to rendezvous with the satellite ship _'Hermes'._ During the abrupt emergency evacuation, however, a single crewmate was struck by stray debris flung by the storm and presumed dead by the others. They couldn't find him in time before the MAV tipped in the substantial winds, and were forced to evacuate without him, believing he was dead from the flat vitals his biomonitor was broadcasting.

It would only be hours later, that the lone man would wake up, suit compromised but miraculously sealed by the coagulated blood on his torso and antenna that penetrated his stomach.

As Moxie first experienced the true turbulence of the storm, all remaining power was used to both slow the ship in the air and maintain orientation. At first, all spare external parts had to be sacrificed, such as extending the spare solar arrays to slow them, followed by the emergency parachutes which barely held for seconds within the terrific wind. With what was left, Riu forced the nose of the ship upwards so that the bottom could skid more easily along the ground upon impact -as they couldn't power the landing gear (and it wouldn't do much anyway), but once the ground approached, none of them could brace well enough to stop the silent embrace of unconsciousness from possessing them.

With a bone-shaking crash loud enough to still be audible within the sandstorm outside, the ship screeched as the bottom tore apart on the rough terrain. The smallest of rocks produced the largest of bumps, however somehow thanks to serious divine intervention or luck, nothing large stood in their way. Eventually, the ship began to tilt from the drag against momentum, and with a final shivering creak it slammed to the ground, having scarred the planet behind for a kilometre or two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lucario - Riu  
> Zeraora - Zeph  
> Zoroark - Crystal


End file.
